Singer Spotlight: Bill Calhoun

What is/was your occupation?

I teach mathematics and computer science at Bloomsburg University. In recent years I’ve helped to start a new data science program. Data science extracts useful information from the huge amounts of data available today. Data can be used for medical research or to train computers to understand speech or even to predict what song you would like to hear next!

Impressive! I’m sure most of that is over my head, but reminds me of how I keep seeing ads on Facebook for things I was just looking at on Amazon, haha!

Tell us, how many years have you been singing with the SVC?

I found my way to the SVC fourteen years ago and have sung most of the concerts since then. It’s a great group of singers and it is a privilege to be able to perform with the SVC orchestra and the SVC stage band. Bill Payn is an inspiring conductor who has an amazing ability to get a group of musicians and singers to go beyond hitting the notes and really make music together. Now we’re recording our parts while watching Bill on a computer screen and listening to the accompaniment on headphones. It’s an interesting challenge, but I’m looking forward to the day when we can get back to live performances.

Thank you for your kind words; they are clearly heartfelt and much appreciated. And thank you for embracing the new challenges we’ve been dealt with keeping the arts alive over the last several months. It’s great to see everyone coming together to help each other get through this.

What was your favorite concert or chorale season to date, and why?

It’s hard to pick one. I had sung the Kodaly Missa Brevis in high school and it was a joy to sing that beautifully lyrical music again. I had fun doing my best to cover Smokey Robinson (down in my baritone range) at the Motown Pops concert. The Alzheimer Stories, a work that was commissioned by the SVC, was especially meaningful to me because my mother suffered from memory loss at the end of her life. She was a wonderful singer and violinist who shared her love of music with me. The Mozart Requiem was moving to sing. A German colleague from Penn State came to that concert with his wife and in-laws. He was a big Mozart fan, so I was curious what he would think. He loved it! He pointed out that it was especially appropriate to perform Mozart in Sunbury since his librettist Lorenzo De Pontte moved there from Italy. That was news to me, but it’s true! There is a sign about De Pontte in the park a few blocks from Zion Lutheran Church. He lived in Sunbury from 1811 to 1818 at the corner of Third and Market. Amazing!

WOW, I’ll say! I’m sure that’s a fun fact that even many residents of Sunbury don’t know about. I’m glad you were able to be a part of those significant musical moments with the SVC. The Mozart Requiem never gets old, and the Kodaly Missa Brevis certainly has some fun and unique elements. Of course, Alzheimer Stories definitely helped cement the chorale’s place among other reputable choral organizations.

Do you have any other musical involvements?

I was in choirs in high school and college and played keyboards in some garage bands. When I was a professor in Michigan, I was in the chorus of the Kalamazoo Bach Festival. After moving to Bloomsburg, I found several opportunities to sing. At one time I was in three choirs, but I got too busy, so now my only choirs are SVC and SVC Limited. For a while, I was in a math professor garage band called The Derivatives. Our “Pi Song (3.14159)” (to the tune of “867-5309” with words by Kevin Ferland and myself) is popular in math classes on “Pi Day” (March 14, i.e. 3.14). I occasionally perform original songs and old favorites, accompanying myself on the piano, to small but friendly audiences.

That’s so cool! I hope you never stop doing things like that. It keeps us young. And with using the left side of your brain all day at work, it helps keeps you mentally balanced too, haha. Music is very mathematical, so I’m not surprised that both subjects are very prominent in your life.

Thanks so much for sharing a little bit about yourself here. I look forward to singing with you in person again soon, but until then will see you in our virtual choir rehearsals and performances. Go SVC!